Estimation of the seismic resistance heritage buildings by dynamic testing of their structural parts

Dynamic testing of full-scale heritage buildings is one of the ways to estimate their seismic resistance. However, this method is rather seldom used, because it is a time- and cost consuming procedure, and it may yield nonlinear deformations, damages in structural elements, which is unacceptable for heritage buildings. Dynamic testing of a relatively small part of a multi-storey building (having the same structural scheme) is one of the possible ways for solution of the above described problem. The reliability of the experimental results, obtained for the structural part, should be verified (at least once) by comparison to those from dynamic tests of a full-scale building. Because this method is problematic for a heritage building, the authors have verified the proposed technique on a usual full-scale multi-storey building and its structural part. A three-storey structural part was tested and the results were compared to those obtained by dynamic vibration testing of the full-scale 11-storey building. It was shown that, if the dynamic parameters of both structures are close, it is possible to obtain the seismic loads acting on the real building, using the impulse forces applied to the structural part. This approach may also be successfully used for the estimation of seismic resistance of real heritage buildings. If a heritage building is located in a seismic zone and according to the experimental data it has low seismic resistance, it is possible to use a base isolation system for improving its seismic response. It is shown in this study that the design of a base isolation system for a full-scale building can be carried out according to experimental results obtained for a structural part of the building.